NEW DELHI: A panel set up to review norms for no-go areas that will protect certain areas from commercial activity is likely to recommend mining should be disallowed in all national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the country.

Sources in the government told TOI that the committee, headed by the Union environment and forests secretary, is likely to close the debate over no-go areas as it is not inclined to reassess protected areas in view of existing legal protection provided to national parks and sanctuaries that has been supplemented by orders of the Supreme Court.

The committee was set up after a Group of Ministers (GoM) on coal asked the environment ministry to reconsider parameters for no-go areas, where mining is not permitted. They were renamed inviolate areas and the ministry asked to set new norms to be put before the GoM.